On June 24, 1974, Time magazine published a story titled "Another Ice Age?" The article reported in its lead, "When meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing."

I grew up in Florida where my parents were citrus growers on a 150-acre farm. A series of freezes in the 1970s and early 1980s seriously damaged Florida crops. On Christmas Eve night in 1983, a severe freeze came along when the temperature plummeted to 18 degrees and destroyed my parents' citrus trees and sole source of income. My wife and I were there and witnessed the results of the weather's devastation on Christmas morning. All of those trees were later bulldozed and burned.

According to the National Weather Service, Muncie, Anderson, South Bend and Fort Wayne recorded their lowest average monthly temperatures for July since official record keeping started in the 1890s. The average temperature in Indianapolis of 70.9 degrees was the second coolest on record, just 0.3 degrees warmer than the July of 1947. It was also the coldest July on record in Illinois. The statewide average temperature for July was 70.4 degrees, 5.3 degrees below normal and a degree colder than the previous record set in 1924 (71.5 degrees). Use "July temperatures" as an Internet search term, and you will find dozens of newspaper articles about record or near-record cool temperatures throughout the Midwest.